This meditation is intended to help you connect with both your physical body and with Source as you experience the Light of the new year moving through your energy centers.
Tag Archives: shift
Prepare for Your New Year: Beauty
This is the first of four weekly audio posts I was guided to make available. It’s a five-minute guided meditation designed to awaken awareness of the beauty that’s all around you, and to help you set an intention to be grateful for your connection as a creator and partaker of that beauty.
Giving Thanks
A year ago this week, I was gearing up to have what should have been a simple knee surgery. It turned out to be a life-changing experience. I got an infection, had the surgery a second time, was treated with antibiotics I turned out to be allergic to, and ended up back in the hospital again at the end of last year. One month, two surgeries, eleven days in the hospital, one lost holiday season.
Last Thursday, watching my two-year-old great-niece toddle around my sister-in-law’s house, I felt truly thankful to be alive, to be able to see and experience life and love around me. This week, instead of rushing out headlong into the next holiday frenzy, take some time to connect with the Source of Light and Life, and remember what makes you truly thankful. Maybe it will change the way you spend your winter holidays.
Starting December 1, I’ll be posting a new audio message here each week for four weeks called Prepare for Your New Year: Giving Thanks. These messages will be focused on opening yourself to Source and your guides, remembering and reconnecting with the gifts you have already been given. As we head toward the darkest time of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least!), let’s prepare to greet the New Year by sharing our gifts and our Light with the world.
Not Winnable
I recently downloaded a free solitaire game. It only lets you play classic solitaire (with the three-card flip of the deck), nothing fancy. It does have one great feature, however… as soon as you pass the point of no return, this message pops up in red: NOT WINNABLE.
Now there’s a feature I’d love to have in everyday life… a light-up sign from the Universe telling me that no matter how much passion, energy, intention I pour into a situation or relationship, I won’t get the results I seek if I approach it with the tools I have at hand. To know that it would serve my Highest and Best Good to direct my intention elsewhere, to look for new tools. Shuffle the cards and deal again.
What are your “not winnable” situations? Is there any more you can do with the hand you’ve been dealt? Or is it time to shake things up a bit, to reshuffle, to try something new?
Cutting Down the Tree
Photo by Marilyn Jane
In late August, a weird freak wind gust came racing down our street during a storm and tore limbs off some of the old trees that line the street I live on. Across the street from our house, the huge old tree in our neighbors front yard was cut in half, vertically, and massive branches came crashing down, blocking the street. When the city crews came and hauled everything away, they spray painted a big orange circle on what was left of that tree. Every time I looked out my window, that bright orange caught my eye, and our whole family knew the tree wouldn’t be there long.
It’s funny how, when you know something is about to be taken away, you pay much more attention to it. Our family watched the leaves change color, watched the squirrels (and the neighbor’s cat) run up and down the trunk … all the while knowing that this is the last fall we’d see those things.
This afternoon they finally came to cut down the tree. It took three men, making cuts in the trunk, checking each others work, and then finally … the tree came down into the street. It stretched from our neighbor’s house, across the road, and onto our front lawn. The crew cleared away the debris and drove away.
Now when I look out the window, there’s a new space where there wasn’t one just a few hours ago. The sky looks different … I haven’t seen it unobscured by branches since I’ve lived here.
The time we spent paying extra attention to that tree, sitting by its deathbed, in a sense, is a good metaphor for autumn itself. What half-dead habits, broken relationships, unhelpful patterns, are we holding onto because they’ve always been there? Give those things the courtesy, the respect of placing your attention on them. See them for what they are …
In this season of letting go of what no longer serves us, imagine how different your view could be if you removed the things that kept you from seeing farther, from having a clear path.
Ten Years Ago Today
On 9/11/01, I was at home in San Francisco with my family. A relative called to tell us about the attacks, and we switched on the TV. It stayed on for two days, as we watched the events unfold. Our home was near the airport, and the hum of aircraft was so much a part of our lives we didn’t notice it much anymore. But on that day, the planes were grounded, and the silence was palpable.
My oldest son was almost two years old then, and I remember watching him play happily in the sunshine and thinking, “What kind of a world will he grow up in? Will he have to live his life in fear?”
In the decade that followed, we’ve seen the payoff of a focus on fear and hate. War, greed, desolation, selfishness, cruelty. And profound loss.
We’ve also seen acts of courage, heroism, and unconditional love. We’ve seen hope and generosity rise from the devastation of disaster to touch lives and change hearts. In the last ten years, more and more people are experiencing a spiritual awakening … realizing that there is more to our experience on this planet than what we can see, touch, or grab for ourselves. And more and more of us feel called to reach out to others to share the fruits of our awakening, building networks and communities to bring us together and raise the vibration of the planet.
This weekend, One the Event is bringing people together to catalyze a collective shift to love and unity that will move us past the fear and hate of the last decade. You can be part of the event in person, if you’re in the Seattle area, or join in the global webcast.
I’ve been asked to host a special live radio broadcast today, as part of One the Event. Tune in today at 3 pm Pacific / 6 pm Eastern to hear me interview Shann Vander Leek and Raven Mardirosian. We’ll talk about reinventing our lives, and how to truly make the shift from fear to love … and the changes that making that shift can bring into our lives.
Where you were ten years ago? What were your dreams? And where are you today?
With every breath we take, we can change our course … change our lives … by shifting out of the fog of fear and into love.
Chainsaws and voiceover recording don’t mix
Rushing to meet a deadline on some voiceover recordings, I raced into the office, hooked up the recording equipment, looked over the script, adjusted the mic, pressed “record” … and was interrupted by the sound of chainsaws outside my window.
A couple of weeks ago, a sudden storm brought huge branches down from some of the old trees in my neighborhood, including the big oak tree outside my back gate. The city has been going around the neighborhood removing the debris, and apparently this afternoon it’s my turn.
So now that I can’t finish the recording … at least for the next few minutes … I have a choice. Do I jump up and down, curse the chainsaw-bearing men for interrupting me? Or do I see this as a chance to spend a few more minutes with the script, get a cup of tea, and relax until it’s the right time to begin this work?
Often, when I’m in a panic about getting something done on time, the Universe will throw a spanner in the works to get me to slow down. What’s the good of doing work you love if you’re too rushed to stop and feel how much you love it?
Musing on Mindfulness
Embracing the grace of every moment, expressing gratitude for what is now, is not easy.
It requires being mindful of exactly who you are in this moment … not as you were in the past or hope to be in the future, or could have been if things had only gone your way.
Being aware of who you are in this precise moment, and being grateful for it … even if this particular moment is not comfortable, pleasant, or ideal … opens you up to gifts and opportunities you might not even notice otherwise.
Fear, Love, and Hope
I’ve talked with a lot of people in the last week who feel like they might miss the boat. If they don’t scramble, grab, clutch at opportunities, crush the competition, get out in front … all will be lost.
Fear tells us to hold on tighter, ferociously guard what little we have in case someone tries to take it away. Fear brings all the light and air and possibility in the world down to a dark, desperate pinpoint focus.
Love invites us to relax our death-grip, give freely from what we have so there is space to be filled with more good things. Love lifts our head from that desperate, narrow focus, and opens our senses so we can breathe the air, see the light.
I often say that shifting your perspective from fear to love doesn’t make a lousy situation any less lousy. But all that fear-based scrambling leads you right back to where you started … stuck, paralyzed, miserable. And love invites opportunity, welcomes change, embraces new partnerships, new horizons.
Make the shift … and welcome choices, chances, hope.
Message from Spirit
Before I connect with a client on the phone, I sit in meditation for a few minutes. Very often, I’ll receive guidance from Spirit about what needs to be communicated to that person. This morning, I got a very clear message for my client … with the understanding that I was also meant to share this message with all of you.
Here’s what I received:
“If you will just breathe, it will come to you. You don’t need to pull it toward you … that’s working too hard. This is a time when you must embrace the grace of every moment, and express your gratitude for what is now.”
This message has tremendous resonance for me personally, and my sense is that it will be useful for many of us during this time of shift and transformation. When we are afraid, we hang on more tightly, clutch at what we have, especially when we feel it might be taken away from us.
Once we make the shift to love, we can open our hands … open our hearts … and allow ourselves to receive what we need and let go of what no longer serves us.
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I felt guided to jump on the airwaves today for a special 30-minute long episode of “Out of the Fog” to take your calls for readings, and share this message on the air. We’ll be live at 1 pm Eastern / 10 am Pacific. http://t.co/jDihgt0 or 646-929-2947 is how to connect if you’d like to listen to this impromptu special episode! If a compassionate, no-nonsense intuitive reading will help you have a better Friday … please call in today.